Who Is Steve Bannon? Everything You Need to Know About Donald Trump’s Dangerous New Chief Strategist

The former Breitbart CEO has a reputation for stoking anti-Semitism, among a litany of other sins.

It's been almost a week since we elected Donald J. Trump as our president, and with each passing day the reality of what that election means gets more and more real. Today's dose of dark reality? Former Breitbart head Steve Bannon has been tapped to be Trump's chief strategist and to serve as a senior adviser. Now, this is obviously not surprising news. After all, Bannon has been serving as the CEO of the Trump campaign. Top campaign staff becoming top White House staff is just what happens when you're on the winning team. It's typical, even. But Steve Bannon is anything but typical.

What, who is he?
Oh, nice! A Q+A format that will make this quick and easy. I love it.

You didn't answer my question. Who is he?
My bad. I forgot that part. Steve Bannon is the executive chairman of the right-wing website Breitbart News, and came aboard the Trump campaign as its CEO in August. During the election, Breitbart News cuddled up to what has been called the "alt-right" movement, which is basically a nice way of saying "the white-nationalist assholes who are threatening to take over the Republican party."

That doesn't sound good. Is it possible he wasn't the reason the site dabbled in white nationalism? Like, maybe it was someone else's thing and he just went with—you know...that sounds bad, too, actually.
Yeah, that would be bad, too. But it doesn't seem like the case. In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center had this to say about Bannon on Twitter:

Well, thanks for the heads up. That sounds like some bad new—
I'm not done. According to the New York Daily News, his ex-wife has also talked about how Bannon is anti-Semitic (which dovetails with the Pepe the Frog–loving alt-right as well):

Mary Louise Piccard said in a 2007 court declaration that Bannon
didn't want their twin daughters attending the Archer School for Girls
in Los Angeles because many Jewish students were enrolled at the elite
institution.

"The biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that
attend," Piccard said in her statement signed on June 27, 2007.

"He said that he doesn't like the way they raise their kids to be
'whiny brats' and that he didn't want the girls going to school with
Jews," Piccard wrote.

Bannon Is A Legitimately Sinister Figure. Many former employees of Breitbart News are afraid of Steve Bannon. He is a vindictive, nasty
figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening
enemies. Bannon is a smarter version of Trump: he’s an aggressive
self-promoter who name-drops to heighten his profile and woo bigger
names, and then uses those bigger names as stepping stools to his next
destination. Trump may be his final destination. Or it may not. He
will attempt to ruin anyone who impedes his unending ambition, and he
will use anyone bigger than he is—for example, Donald Trump—to get
where he wants to go. Bannon knows that in the game of thrones, you
win or die. And he certainly doesn’t intend to die. He’ll kill
everyone else before he goes.

So even if I voted for Trump because I was experiencing economic anxiety—
You helped at least two terrifying monsters get to a place of extreme power. Or as John Weaver, John Kasich's former campaign manager, put it on Twitter: "Just to be clear news media, the next president named a racist, anti-semite as the co-equal of the chief of staff."